Silence reigns in the warehouse for a moment as they all stand there staring down at Adam Smasher's corpse, the Malorian in Rogue's hand still smoking and the braincase where Smasher's last biological components had been stored smolders and fizzes in its destroyed state.
Then, from off to the side…
"Seriously?"
All eyes turn to Rebecca, who crosses her gorilla arms over her chest and arches a brow at Rogue. The Queen of the Afterlife narrows her eyes in response.
"Excuse me?"
"That's the best you came up with? Not even a 'goddamn motherfucker' or something?"
Rogue purses her lips and flares her nostrils, but Rebecca just continues on unabated.
"Personally, I would have said he went out like a bitch or something! Or at least just keep it simple with 'you fucker'. 'You Goddamn Fucker' just sounds… clunky!"
"Are you seriously critiquing my one liners, Rebecca Carmine?"
If Rebecca is daunted by the Queen of the Afterlife using her full government name on her, the shortie doesn't show it. Throwing her gorilla arms into the air, she just huffs.
"Yeah! When you wait fifty years only to fumble the one liner at the finish line, I'm going to critique it! Fuck, I can't believe I thought you were cool!"
The funniest thing is, even though it's so miniscule that he's pretty sure he's the only one that sees it, V is pretty sure Rogue winces a little at that last bit as she takes some emotional damage from the comparative youngster's verbal sniping. And honestly, he's pretty sure that deep down Rogue wasn't too happy with her final one liner to Smasher either… even if now she has to defend it with all she's got in the face of Rebecca's judgmental attitude.
As the two female mercenaries, one far older and the other once dead and resurrected, begin to bicker and snipe at one another, V just smiles, enjoying the sight. But after a moment, when Alt signals him that the last of Smasher's reinforcements have also been dealt with, he turns his gaze towards a particular warehouse wall… and his attention towards the tall skyscraper off in the distance in that direction.
It was time to end this. Just like last time, it'd be on his terms… but unlike last time, there was nobody coming out on top save for V himself.
-x-X-x-
Yorinobu Arasaka was not a man prone to panicking. Even when he was startled or caught off guard or simply surprised, he tended to default to anger over fear. It was just how he was built…
That said, if anything were to make him start to panic, right now would be it. Smasher was Yorinobu's greatest asset at this point. Not Arasaka's, but his. And that distinction was important, because as long as Yorinobu kept the chaos up, so long as there were enough people to kill, Smasher would continue to follow his orders and ignore everyone else in the megacorp.
… Or so he'd thought. Unfortunately, his calculations must have been off somewhere along the way, because Smasher had left the Tower with an entire contingent of cyber-ninjas over an hour ago and none of Yorinobu's calls for the Head of Security to return had been answered.
It was possible, he supposed, that someone was blocking him from contacting Smasher, but it was far more plausible that Smasher was just ignoring him for some reason… which did not bode well for Yorinobu's plans to dismantle his father's corporation and completely and utterly destroy the old bastard's life's work.
Even still, Yorinobu was not panicking. He was simply… exploring all of his options. Trying to figure out why Smasher had departed in the first place was proving to be an exercise in futility though, unfortunately. There were no answers in Arasaka's systems, forcing Yorinobu to send actual agents out to hunt Smasher down and assess what the fuck the Borg was doing.
Admittedly, Yorinobu was expecting those agents to come back with a response like 'killing' or something equally simple and for all of this to just turn out to be Smasher blowing off steam… but he still couldn't help but wonder if there was something more to it. If there was-
A ping comes in and Yorinobu immediately sits up at his desk in his office at the top of Arasaka Tower. However, the call is not from his agents in the field… but rather his sister. Blinking, he answers it and watches as Hanako's concerned and worried eyes appear in the corner of his vision.
"Yorinobu. There is a problem with Mikoshi… I need you down here, now."
She doesn't bother waiting for a response, simply hanging up on him in such an audacious move that Yorinobu's jaw hangs open in disbelief for a moment. Though to be fair, it's not simply Hanako's audacity that fills him with incredulity. Mikoshi… it was the one thing he had yet to be able to touch, even after taking over as CEO of Arasaka.
Whatever was going down there, Hanako had kept a tight grip on it… so tight that Yorinobu had been considering more and more whether or not to just order Smasher to go and destroy the whole place. He didn't fully understand what Mikoshi was for beyond the asinine 'Save Your Soul' scam that Arasaka had been marketing to the rich and influential for a bit now, but he knew it wasn't something he cared for.
Unfortunately, Smasher was out and now Hanako was inviting him down to it out of nowhere. It screamed trap… and yet, who could Yorinobu trust at this point? Nobody save for himself.
Rising from his desk, Yorinobu's nostrils flare as he opens a drawer and pulls out his gun. Even if he was the only person he could trust, it mattered not… he wasn't just some corpo, he was a fighter. If Hanako thought that she could trick or trap him… then he would do what he had to do and spring the trap.
Making his way out of his office and to the elevator, Yorinobu heads all the way down the Tower… all the way to the basement, to Mikoshi. He steps out to find deserted and pristine metal hallways and not a single soul in sight. Eyes narrowing, he continues onward, eventually reaching the massive vault door beyond which Mikoshi lay.
It cycles open the moment he gets close enough to it, allowing Yorinobu to enter the large room beyond for the first time. There… he finds someone waiting for him. Not his sister, though he quickly locates her off to the side and barely in his peripheral vision… no, there's a man standing there turned away from him, staring up at the mainframe.
Yorinobu immediately notes that the man is armed and his sister isn't, so he lifts his own firearm and points it directly at the man's back. However… his own sense of honor won't let him pull the trigger while the other man is turned away. Especially not when he wants answers.
"What is this?"
The man turns around… and Yorinobu still doesn't recognize him. He might as well be just another NC street kid with the way he has his hair shaved close to the scalp and looks so… nondescript. The gun in his hand isn't anything special, even as it remains pointed at the floor. However, there's something in his other hand… something Yorinobu hadn't properly registered at first.
Almost contemptuously, the man tosses it down onto the ground between them. Yorinobu's aim doesn't waver for even a moment as he glances down a handful of times in order to fully process what he's looking at. It's the braincase for a Borg who's gone through an FBC, aka a Full Body Conversion.
Specifically, it's the destroyed braincase of one Adam Smasher… Yorinobu would be a fool not to recognize it from the coloring and the Arasaka branding, to say nothing of the context clues alone.
"This is a change in management."
Yorinobu blinks, his face twisting in incredulity at the man's words.
"Excuse me? Who even are you?"
Far from being offended at not being recognized, the man just smiles.
"The name's V. You'd probably know me as one of the two mercenary rats who was hiding in the pillar that night when you killed your father in front of us."
Yorinobu stiffens up at that. Yes, that does contextualize who this man, this 'V' is quite well. Hm. He slides his gaze over to Hanako for a moment.
"So he's convinced you of these lies? Is this why you're going along with this, sister?"
Hanako looks… sad, surprisingly enough. Not worried, not stressed, not fearful… but sad. She simply shakes her head wordlessly, staying quiet and out of the way.
"I didn't have to convince her of anything. After all, when you killed your father that night… you failed to complete the job."
Yorinobu's full attention snaps back to V at that, the mercenary's words sending a chill down his spine.
"Excuse me?"
V gestures behind him with his empty hand, still keeping his gun pointed at the ground.
"Mikoshi. It's a lot more than the 'Secure Your Soul' program. Especially to someone like Saburo Arasaka. You might have killed his flesh, but an engram of him lived on despite that. An engram that would have seen you dead… or rather, seen you become his new body if he'd been given half the chance."
Yorinobu flinches. How can one not when they are told such heinous things? The sad thing is, he can't even bring himself to call V a liar… that sounds precisely like what Saburo would do. Still, Yorinobu calls out to Hanako all the same, not taking his eyes off of V or the mainframe at this point.
"Is this true, Hanako?"
"… Father did survive your attack, yes. He got in contact with me after a certain point. However, he did not last long enough for me to say with certainty what his plans for you would have been."
What? Yorinobu's brow furrows, prompting V's smile to widen.
"I took care of Saburo's engram for you weeks ago, Yorinobu. I ended him once and for all. And once you and I are done here, I'll end Mikoshi as well. Secure Your Soul, Soulkiller, Mikoshi… all of that is over. I'll make sure of it."
The incredulity seeps back in as this mercenary talks as though he will be the primary authority in Arasaka soon enough. But then… the way Hanako seems to bow to this 'V'… it seems ridiculous, and yet… well, if there's only one way this ends anyways, Yorinobu might as well come clean.
"Hah! Why stop there?! Tear it all down! Destroy Arasaka in its entirety, as I intend to!"
Hanako's lack of reaction to the reveal of his plans is telling, but to be fair Yorinobu did not think his sister was a lackwit so he's not surprised she'd already figured out what he was doing. She just couldn't figure out how to stop him.
V though… V's smile becomes almost remorseful as he shakes his head.
"You know… in another life, I think we might not have been enemies, Yorinobu Arasaka. You aren't cut from the same cloth as your father, that much is certain. I can even admit that a man like Saburo Arasaka needed killing… that's why I made sure to end his second life. However…"
Yorinobu arches a brow, still pointing his gun at the completely unconcerned mercenary. However?
"… I was one of two men in the pillar that night. The other man, Jackie Welles, died because of what happened at Konpeki Plaza. Don't get me wrong, you're not solely responsible for his death… the blame is shared among many. However, out of everyone who I do blame for his demise… the only two people left standing are me… and you."
Funnily enough, Yorinobu can understand that. A need for personal revenge trumping rational pragmatism is something he can understand VERY well. The corner of his mouth lifts in a crooked smirk as he finds himself actually feeling a certain degree of respect for the mercenary across from him.
"I understand. You must avenge your friend… I cannot begrudge you that. However, I must avenge myself on all of my father's transgressions… so I cannot die here today. I hope you do not begrudge me that."
Yorinobu doesn't bother waiting for a response from there. He pulls the trigger. But V is already moving, his body twisting, his gun coming up. Yorinobu's bullet, which would have taken the mercenary right through the head, wings past instead as he moves his head out of the way.
Meanwhile, V's own shot… takes Yorinobu directly in center mass, sending him stumbling back as a second shot and then a third shot and then a fourth shot all land in his chest, punching through subdermal armor and reinforced ribs and puncturing his heart twice and each of his lungs once.
He falls back, his gun dropping from nerveless fingers, and finds himself staring up at the ceiling in disbelief that this was how he died.
There's a commotion and Hanako is suddenly at his side, her fingers curling along his hand as his digits twitch and pulse with his last breaths.
To his surprise, there are tears in his sister's eyes for him, even as she smiles down at him. Leaning forward, Hanako whispers words meant only for his ears.
"Go in peace, brother. Go knowing that Arasaka's new Emperor is a man that our father _never_ would have approved of."
Funnily enough… that does go a long way to settling Yorinobu Arasaka in his final moments. The realization that Hanako has all but submitted herself to a… a gaijin mercenary is honestly quite hilarious. For her and V to succeed in taking Arasaka for themselves, many of the old guard will have to be liquidated. Arasaka's strength will ultimately be diminished either way.
While he would have preferred for Arasaka to be destroyed altogether… Yorinobu can acknowledge that the thought of Arasaka continuing but led by a man who Saburo Arasaka would have disdained with all his being… well, it really is comforting, to say the truth.
Even as blood leaks out of the sides of his mouth, Yorinobu Arasaka dies with a smile on his face, eyes staring up sightlessly at the ceiling overhead. He dies knowing that his father's work, if not dismantled… will at least be forever tarnished.